Juuuust a quick one, as I shall be returning on Tuesday with vastly more fulsome news on Frozen Endzone, Mode 7’s next game after the wonderful Frozen Synapse. But they’ve just gone live with a trailer and a Greenlight page, so see what you think. It’s a future sports game. It’s a strategy game. In other words, it’s a sports game that isn’t really a sports game. And it looks well flash.

Obviously they’d love you to do the Greenlight voting thingywotist, and there’s also a Facebook page on which to do whatever people do on Facebook these days. No, I don’t mean send them a selfie.

I went to see the game and interview the devs yesterday, so return next week for words, thoughts, pictures and more. By the way, Endzone is an American football term. It doesn’t mean your bottom. I suspect we’re all going to be calling this ‘Frendzone’ anyway, aren’t we?

I was going to say that it would be pretty interesting as a straight american football game, but then thinking about it, 11 guys to move per turn would be pretty awful so it needs something along this lines to work..

This is exactly what I thought. Hopefully it takes some good cues from blood bowl because from the trailer, It doesn’t look like you do anything but run pass and tackle, which will be a shame if true. I want to attack other players, then kick them while they’re down :)

The Orc book “Good fiNgs to Do when PLayin BlOOd Bolw” has some excellent advice about the ball (such as “Dun eaT thiS”), and it comes in a resilient chew-proof cover! It is also lavishly illustrated in three random colours of crayon, plus authentic blood stains.

Buy now, and I’ll throw in a free copy of the Halfling half-time stew recipe!

As much as I loved Frozen Synapse, I’m not sure if I’ll be picking this one up, as sports games aren’t really my thing. Half of what drew me into synapse was the campaign and the story that came with it, after all.

Frozen Synapse-ootball!…is probably a better name than Frozen Endzone.

Nonetheless, it sounds awesome. I could imagine it having even more strategic depth than Frozen Synapse. Alternatively/also, it could be more intuitive, not that FS wasn’t quite intuitive, but I imagine with the more simple rules behind tackling/throwing/intercepting there would be less confusion over stuff like “If I run through this hallway will that guy be able kill me before I get to cover?”

That is actually the very first time i heard anybody dislike the music of nervous_testpilot.
And it just now occurs to me that it is indeed wierd how everybody seems to like it. I have a friend who listens to punk and metal and who hates the electric music i have gotten to like. And when we played Android: Netrunner i randomly put the FS OST on, mostly to troll him but now we listen to it every time.

Well, it isn’t Electronic music, for starters, since it’s not dance music. I feel that people like it because it taps into this starving musical audience who want good electronic or trance-ish music, but can’t stand the repetitive, overly sample driven nature of those subgenres, which sadly happen to be trapped under the dance music umbrella.

I’m guessing the reason they announced now for a 2014 release is because they’re going to have another nutty long beta.

I will admit I’m slightly disappointed. Not with the idea of the game itself. But I was secretly hoping for Frozen Synapse 2, but expanded to have an XCOM style meta-game. Ah well, I’ll hold onto that dream for a while.

That would pretty much take it from being a multiplayer only title to a singleplayer title for me. Wonder what SP features this will have. I can’t imagine there’s as much narrative you can attempt with a sports game.

But yeah, seriously, pass. Not because it won’t be a soundly executed game or that it might not be fun — it’s just not something I’d invest time into. I love turn-based tactics, I love futurebots, I can dig alternative sports stuff like Blood Bowl. Heck, I even indulge in electrobump music at times. But…yeah.

Good idea..don’t like the robots, rather have seen actual human players but all padded up like Speedball. Then they could have had teams and leagues and customise kits etc…then add horrible traps..finally injuries and death.

Massively, heart-breakingly, disappointing. I love Frozen Synapse, but I don’t believe I could be less interested in the sport on display here in the vid. I cannot blame developers for wanting to tackle something different, but this is a huge let-down.

I may as well ask you guys as well: Did they ever fix the bugs in Frozen Synapse that could change the history of your game (so that the previous turns no longer played out the way that they did the first time around, making the entire state of the game suddenly different?)